


Reciprocity

by White Aster (white_aster)



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
Genre: Angst, Community: kinkfest, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-20
Updated: 2007-09-20
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/white_aster/pseuds/White%20Aster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They take turns being the strong one.  SPOILERS through DDS1's waterway scenes.</p><p>For the prompt: <br/>SMT: Digital Devil Saga, Argilla/Gale: talking - a voice like an anchor on a rough sea (...and what was a sea?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reciprocity

"Argilla?"

She started, banging the back of her head on the wall as it snapped up, her vision swimming with the...the WATER that wouldn't stop coming from her eyes. It was annoying, and she couldn't make it stop. It made her angry, around the tightness in her chest, around the fear, around the..._disgust_ and all the other feelings that she didn't know she knew the words for. That she hadn't known _existed_....

Argilla scrubbed a hand over her face. Of all people to find her here....

Gale stood with one foot still on the lowest step, turned and looking in at where she'd wedged herself between the extra crates piled in the tiny space under the stairs. He cocked his head. "Why are you sitting there?"

Part of her felt (_embarrassed_) odd...yet _another_ kind of odd, this one making her cheeks feel hot for no reason at all. She took a deep breath to steady herself, palming her face dry. "I...I don't know. I just...I was on my way to see Heat, and I...wanted to be somewhere private for a moment."

Gale looked doubtful. "You required privacy to sit under the stairs? I do not comprehend."

"Neither do I, dammit!" Her fist lashed out, slamming against the side of the crate with a dull metallic bang. More water in her eyes. Great. And she didn't even think that it was from the split knuckle. "Dammit." She put the knuckle in her mouth and the taste of blood made the brand on her chest burn.

Someone passed Gale to go up the stairs, steps ringing on the metal above her and fading away.

Gale moved closer, skirting the crates and hunching down in front of her so their knees nearly touched. She suddenly felt more enclosed than she had a moment ago, almost trapped, but oddly enough it made her want to hit him less, not more. Gale cocked his head to one side again. "You are...." He frowned, reaching out a curious finger to trace the wetness on her cheeks.

"I know. I don't know the word for it, either," she murmured. The touch of Gale's fingers was nice. It was. It stilled things inside her, as if some of Gale's calm was flowing through the contact. She reached out, circling his wrist with her fingers and holding it so that he couldn't pull away. He stilled but didn't fight, and she closed her eyes, concentrating on the feel of him being close.

"Argilla?" She could hear the unspoken "I do not comprehend" in his voice.

Argilla squeezed her eyes shut. "Just...this helps. Just give me a minute."

She heard him shift, then evidently decide that it would be better to indulge her. "All right."

She could feel the calluses on his palm, on his trigger finger. Though squatting down like that with his arm extended couldn't be comfortable, his hand was steady and solid. _Everything_ about Gale was steady and solid. That had always been reassuring. It was a sign of a good Tactician. Argilla couldn't count the number of times that Gale had been the only steady thing on a chaotic battlefield, his voice like an anchor on a rough sea (and what the hell was a _sea_?), leading them all to victory.

Gale _was_ the Tactician. He was the one who _knew_ things. He would figure this out. They would get through it. They would go to Nirvana.

They _would_. Gale and Serph would make sure of it.

Argilla opened her eyes.

Gale was still watching her curiously. "I do not comprehend. Are you--

 

> [ SET: timeshift {+197cycles}: GO]

 

"--all right?"

Gale looked up. His eyes were bright green, the color of leaves that Argilla had never seen, hard and open and hurt in a way that she'd never imagined they _could_ look. Argilla wondered if coming after him had been such a good idea.

He hadn't wanted to rest, the Tactician in him broken in the face of Lupa's death. He'd wanted to push on, despite their injury and exhaustion. Serph had overriden him, and for one incredible moment Argilla had thought that Gale would refuse. Instead, he had walked off down the passageway, back the way they'd come.

Argilla had given him a half a phase or so. Long enough for everyone else but Heat, who was on watch, to fall asleep. Then she'd gotten up and followed.

Heat had rolled his eyes at her as she'd passed him. "Just leave him be, will ya?"

"No." She'd kept walking.

Finding Gale hadn't been hard. Prithvi could taste his wind-and-steel scent on the air currents. Argilla had found him hidden in a large drainage conduit set shoulder-height off the floor. Not the most tactically advantageous place, but not the worst, either. At least it was defensible.

Gale blinked. "What?"

"I said, are you all right." Argilla made a face, her hand fiddling with the strap of her rifle for lack of anything better to do. "Stupid question. Sorry."

Gale's eyes fell to his hands. He looked _wrong_ sitting there, and it took a moment before Argilla realized that it was because he was _slumping_. He was tired, same as the rest of them. Probably more than the rest of them.

His hands were still stained red, an angry-looking burn across one long palm and winding up his forearm.

A part of her agreed with Heat: she should just leave him alone to lick his wounds in peace.

Instead, she hoisted herself up into the conduit. There was enough room for her to sit next to him, barely. Gale's only reaction was a slight, questioning look, a flare of "what are you doing?" that didn't quite last long enough for him to say anything. Argilla rested her rifle across her knees, pointedly covering the passageway below them. Gale seemed to relax a bit at that, easing his head back against the wall, eyes closing.

A few minutes later, he said quietly. "I think I understand, now."

"I know," she whispered, staring out into the passageway and not seeing it. "I'm sorry."

A bit later, she laid a hand next to his, casually.

A bit after that, his fingers shifted, just enough to close around her wrist.


End file.
